Colorful Lyricism

Helen Frankenthaler's Adriatic (1968) at the Norton Simon Museum's Surface Truths exhibit


I've been feeling a bit down over the past few days, since hearing of the death of Helen Frankenthaler, one of my favorite American abstract painters. Earlier this year, I had the good fortune to view her painting, Adriatic, on numerous occasions as part of my regular visits to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. I would sit down and let my mind drift into the orange clouds of the surface, following the subtle yet precise flows of color. It was always a rich aesthetic experience.

It pains me that this woman who has brought such beauty into my life has left this world.

I went over to LACMA to view her painting, Winter Hunt, to pay my respects. I prefer Adriatic, but I haven't had time to head over to the Huntington Museum, where I think it currently on view.

Detail of Winter Hunt (1958) by Helen Frankenthaler

Although it doesn't have the tranquility of Adriatic, this painting has her characteristic color play and lyrical compositional style. There's an authentic ferocity to the image, a serene savagery.

An Anecdote of the Spirit

Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, USA.


Mark Rothko was born on this date in 1903. He is generally classified as an abstract expressionist painter, although he did not approve of such a classification. I view his work as being closer in spirit to the post-painterly work of later color field artists, such as Helen Frankenthaler. The essence of Rothko's work is the exploration of color in rectangular compositions, multiforms, and their representation of emotional or spiritual states.

To be honest, I was disdainful of Rothko's work in my youth. His paintings looked like vague blocks of random colors to my untrained eye. Certainly, some were attractive in a meaningless decorative manner. Other were obscure and ugly. But I felt no significance behind these random color globs.

Then I heard Morton Feldman's 1971 composition Rothko Chapel, inspired by titular building in which fourteen black paintings by Rothko are featured. In Feldman's music, I could feel the spiritual significance of the paintings. The drifting rhythms and indeterminate compositional style of the music captured the profound apophatic aesthetic that Rothko was expressing.

Orange and Yellow (1956) by Mark Rothko


So I "got" Rothko. But I still didn't adore him. My disdain was replaced by respect, but his work was still not my thing. Then I took a trip to Washington DC. Among the things I wanted to see during this trip was Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party at the Phillips Collection. The Renoir was absolutely amazing, putting me into a positive state of mind and full of aesthetic contemplation. And then I wandered into the nearby Rothko Room. In my receptive state of mind, the psychological intensity of the paintings hit me like a lightning bolt.

I felt like a new type of cognition had been opened in my mind.